2 Lithe Little Apps

But programs that barely exist, except to do the few things that you want, also have their charm. They are fast, light, and so easy to learn that, if you're looking for hidden crannies and variations, you may end up asking, Peggy Lee-style, "Is that all there is?" Then, with resilience similar that of Peggy Lee herself, you stop thinking about the program and concentrate instead on the work it is supposedly helping you do. 

Philippe Kahn's old Sidekick, shown above, was one of the original "barely there, but does everything you want" program. My long-time favorite InfoSelect was another. Here are two others in that tradition.

1) Notational Velocity, or nvALT, is an open-source Mac-only program that I've come to find very handy for quick on-the-fly capture of info that you can later sort-out, recall, or decide to dump. The slightly tweaked current version I use is here; you can find out more about the developer here; and there's a primer on its use here. Nothing fancy about the program, but it does the job. Evernote, of course, is also a wonderful quick-capture tool, with lots of other functions and virtues, and I use it every day. But unlike nvALT it stores its notes in a proprietary format rather than in plain text.

2) Fargo, the latest entry from the longtime software innovator Dave Winer, is a minimalist browser-based outlining, blog-writing, and collaboration tool. It's an outgrowth of Winer's "Little Outliner," whose debut I mentioned a few months ago. So far I find it more interesting to think about than actually to use, since it intentionally omits many of the formatting features needed for structured blog work likes ours here at the Atlantic. But it is worth checking out.

And if, on the other hand, you find a stroll through essentials-only software reawakening your appetite for the complex and the rococo, you will enjoy this paper, by the philosophy professor David Kolb of Bates College, on some of the visual layout possibilities at your disposal with modern hypertext programs. Here's one illustration, created with Tinderbox, from his paper; you'll find lots more. Seriously, this is an intriguing paper.

Speaking of minimalism, time for a procedural note. Through the rest of this week I will be out of the country, in circumstances with very slow and often-timing-out internet connections. I would not have used the illustration above if I had realized it would take so damned long (and so many connection attempts) to load it up to the server! Will try to check in with brief mainly-text posts through the week.